Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Security

Army for the Liberation of Rwanda (ALIR)

The Army for the Liberation of Rwanda (ALIR) also operates as, or is known
as, Interahamwe, Former Armed Forces (ex-FAR).

The FAR was the army of the Rwandan Hutu regime that carried out the
genocide of 500,000 or more Tutsis and regime opponents in 1994. The
Interahamwe was the civilian militia force that carried out much of the
killing. The groups merged and recruited additional fighters after they
were forced from Rwanda into the Democratic Republic of Congo (then Zaire)
in 1994. They are now often known as the Army for the Liberation of Rwanda
(ALIR), which is the armed branch of the PALIR or Party for the Liberation
of Rwanda. The group seeks to topple Rwanda's Tutsi-dominated
government, reinstitute Hutu-control, and, possibly, complete the
genocide. In 1996, a message allegedly from the ALIR threatened to kill
the United States ambassador to Rwanda and other U.S. citizens. In 1999,
ALIR guerrillas, critical of alleged U.S.-U.K. support for the Rwandan
regime, kidnapped and killed eight foreign tourists including two U.S.
citizens in a game park on the Congo-Uganda border. In the current
Congolese war, the ALIR is allied with Kinshasa against the Rwandan
invaders. Several thousand ALIR regular forces operate alongside the
Congolese army on the front lines of the Congo civil war, while a like
number of ALIR guerrillas operates behind Rwandan lines in eastern Congo
closer to the Rwandan border and sometimes within Rwanda.

FAR generally operates in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda,
but has operated in Burundi. The Democratic Republic of the Congo provides
ALIR forces in Congo with training, arms, and supplies.